The Life of Henry the Fifth

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1. ACT FIRST.

   A Chorus calls for 'a Muse of fire'; the Church backs the King's claim to France, and the Dauphin's insult hardens him to war.

   1. Scene 1 — London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace.

      The Chorus opens, wishing for a Muse of fire and a kingdom for a stage, and asks the audience to 'piece out our imperfections' with their thoughts. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Ely plot to head off a bill that would seize the Church's lands by financing — and morally underwriting — a war on France.

   2. Scene 2 — The same. The presence chamber.

      Before the court Canterbury unspools the labyrinthine Salic-law argument that Henry's claim to the French crown is just. Urged on by his lords, the King resolves on war — and the French Ambassador arrives with the Dauphin's mocking gift of tennis balls, which Henry answers with a cold promise of cannon-fire.

2. ACT II.

   England arms while three traitors are bought; the Southampton plot is exposed, and old Falstaff dies offstage.

   1. Scene 1 — London. A street.

      The Chorus tells how all the youth of England now arm for France, and how three lords — Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey — are bribed by French gold to kill the King. In Eastcheap, Nym and Pistol, rivals over the Hostess (whom Pistol has married), are barely kept from blows by Bardolph as word comes that Falstaff lies gravely sick.

   2. Scene 2 — Southampton. A council-chamber.

      At Southampton the King springs his trap: he invites the three conspirators to condemn a small offense, then reveals he knows their plot to murder him. Wounded most by Scroop's betrayed friendship — 'a kind of second fall of man' — he sends all three to execution and embarks for France.

   3. Scene 3 — London. Before a tavern.

      In Eastcheap the Hostess gives her famous, fumbling account of the death of Falstaff — how 'a' babbled of green fields' — and Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, and the Boy set off for the wars.

   4. Scene 4 — France. The King's palace.

      At the French court King Charles VI urges caution, remembering Crécy and Poitiers, while the scornful Dauphin makes light of the English. Exeter arrives with Henry's demand for the crown and a personal defiance to the Dauphin.

3. ACT THIRD.

   Harfleur is stormed and yielded; the captains squabble, Katharine learns English, and Bardolph hangs as the armies near Agincourt.

   1. Scene 1 — France. Before Harfleur.

      The Chorus carries the fleet to France and the siege of Harfleur. At the breach the King rallies his faltering men with the great cry 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.'

   2. Scene 2 — The same.

      The cowardly Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph hang back from the assault until the Boy and Fluellen drive them on. The four captains — Welsh Fluellen, English Gower, Scots Jamy, and Irish Macmorris — wrangle over the mines and the conduct of the siege.

   3. Scene 3 — Before the gates.

      Before the walls Henry warns the Governor of Harfleur in terrifying terms of the rape and slaughter a sack would bring; with no French relief in sight, the Governor yields the town.

   4. Scene 4 — The French King's palace.

      In a scene entirely in French, Princess Katharine takes an English lesson from her gentlewoman Alice, blushing as the new words sound like French obscenities — a comic preparation to meet her conqueror.

   5. Scene 5 — The same.

      At the French court the King and his nobles, shamed that the ragged English have marched so far, name a long roll of great lords and send the herald Montjoy to demand Henry's ransom.

   6. Scene 6 — The English camp in Picardy.

      In the English camp Fluellen praises a bridge's defence, then must report that Bardolph is condemned to hang for robbing a church — a sentence the King upholds without mercy. Montjoy delivers France's demand for ransom, and Henry answers with weary, resolute defiance.

   7. Scene 7 — The French camp, near Agincourt.

      In the French camp the overconfident Constable, Dauphin, Orleans, and Rambures pass the night before battle boasting of their horses and armour and despising the starved English.

4. ACT IV.

   The night-walk before Agincourt, the St. Crispin's Day speech, and a miraculous victory against crushing odds.

   1. Scene 1 — The English camp at Agincourt.

      The Chorus paints the still night before Agincourt and the 'little touch of Harry in the night.' Disguised in a borrowed cloak, the King walks among his soldiers and argues with the blunt Williams over whether a king answers for the souls of those who die in his cause; they exchange gloves to quarrel by later. Alone, Henry meditates on the heavy 'ceremony' that is all a king has above other men.

   2. Scene 2 — The French camp.

      In the French camp the lords arm joyfully, certain the vast odds make victory a formality, almost pitying the doomed English.

   3. Scene 3 — The English camp.

      Told how few they are, Henry answers with the St. Crispin's Day speech — 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers' — turning the long odds into glory, and refuses Montjoy's last offer of ransom.

   4. Scene 4 — The field of battle.

      On the field the braggart Pistol captures a French soldier, Monsieur Le Fer, and — through the Boy's interpreting — spares him for the promise of two hundred crowns, while the Boy notes how cowards thrive as braver men die.

   5. Scene 5 — Another part of the field.

      As the unthinkable rout begins, the French lords cry out in shame and rush back to die rather than outlive their disgrace.

   6. Scene 6 — Another part of the field.

      Exeter tells through tears of the deaths of York and Suffolk, embracing in death; hearing a fresh French alarm, the King orders the prisoners killed.

   7. Scene 7 — Another part of the field.

      Fluellen and Gower rage at the French slaughter of the unarmed boys guarding the luggage; Fluellen compares Henry to Alexander, and the King, learning the day is won, plants the soldier Williams's glove in Fluellen's cap to renew the night's quarrel as a jest.

   8. Scene 8 — Before King Henry's pavilion.

      The glove quarrel is unravelled and Williams pardoned and rewarded; Montjoy brings the count — some ten thousand French dead against a bare handful of English — and Henry gives all the glory to God.

5. ACT FIFTH.

   Pistol is humbled, peace is made, and Henry woos Katharine — as the Epilogue looks ahead to the loss of all he won.

   1. Scene 1 — France. The English camp.

      The Chorus leaps over Henry's triumphant London welcome and back to France. Fluellen, mocked by Pistol over his Welsh leek, beats him into eating it skin and all; the friendless Pistol, his wife dead, resolves to slink home to England and turn cutpurse.

   2. Scene 2 — France. A royal palace.

      At the French court the dukes make peace; while the terms are settled, Henry woos Princess Katharine in blunt soldier's English. Burgundy laments war-ravaged France, the marriage is agreed, and Henry is named heir to the French crown. The Epilogue recalls that this fragile union would be undone under his son Henry VI, who 'lost France and made his England bleed.'

Characters

• Chorus chorus

  The single speaker who frames the play, entering before every act and again for the Epilogue. He apologizes for the bare stage's inability to hold 'the vasty fields of France' and begs the audience to 'piece out our imperfections with your thoughts,' carrying the action across the Channel and through the years.

• King Henry V protagonist

  The former wild Prince Hal, now a sober, eloquent, and formidable king who revives England's claim to France, foils the Southampton traitors, takes Harfleur, and against crushing odds wins Agincourt. By turns warm, ruthless, and self-questioning, he walks his camp in disguise the night before battle and woos the French princess Katharine in blunt soldier's prose.

• Duke of Exeter supporting

  The King's uncle and trusted lieutenant, who delivers Henry's defiance to the French court, holds Harfleur, and reports through tears the deaths of York and Suffolk at Agincourt.

• Archbishop of Canterbury supporting

  Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, who — to deflect a bill that would strip the Church of half its lands — assures the young King that his claim to France is just, and unspools the labyrinthine Salic-law genealogy that becomes the war's legal pretext.

• Bishop of Ely minor

  Canterbury's fellow churchman, who seconds the Archbishop's arguments and presses the King to claim his French inheritance with the courage of his great-grandfather Edward III.

• French Ambassador minor

  The envoy who delivers the Dauphin's mocking gift of tennis balls, drawing from Henry the cold promise that the jest will be answered with cannon-fire and a France not yet born will curse the Dauphin's scorn.

• Duke of Gloucester minor

  Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest brother, who attends Henry through the campaign and commands at his side at Agincourt.

• Duke of Bedford minor

  John, Duke of Bedford, another of the King's brothers, a steady presence among the English commanders before Harfleur and Agincourt.

• Duke of York minor

  The King's cousin, who begs the honour of leading the vanguard at Agincourt and dies there beside his kinsman Suffolk, the two embracing in death as Exeter movingly recounts.

• Earl of Salisbury minor

  An English commander who takes his leave of the King before Agincourt, heartened to fight against such fearful odds.

• Earl of Westmoreland supporting

  A leading English lord who wishes aloud for 'but one ten thousand of those men in England that do no work today' — prompting the King's great St. Crispin's Day reply that he would not have one man more.

• Earl of Warwick minor

  An English lord whom the King sends, with Gloucester, to forestall the quarrel he has mischievously set between Fluellen and Williams over the exchanged gloves.

• Sir Thomas Erpingham minor

  A grave old knight in Henry's army whose cloak the King borrows to walk unrecognized among his soldiers on the night before Agincourt.

• Earl of Cambridge supporting

  Richard, Earl of Cambridge, one of the three traitors bribed by France to murder the King at Southampton; unmasked by Henry, he confesses a deeper motive and goes to his execution.

• Lord Scroop supporting

  Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, the King's intimate friend and bedfellow, whose part in the Southampton assassination plot wounds Henry as the blackest of ingratitudes — 'a kind of second fall of man.'

• Sir Thomas Grey minor

  The third of the Southampton conspirators, condemned with Cambridge and Scroop by the very justice they had urged the King to show others.

• Fluellen supporting

  A peppery, pedantic Welsh captain who measures all war against 'the disciplines of the Roman wars,' compares Henry to Alexander, and makes Pistol eat a leek for mocking his nation. Brave, loyal, and endlessly disputatious, he is the play's great comic voice.

• Gower supporting

  A level-headed English captain, Fluellen's friend and straight man, who admires the Welshman's courage and helps expose Pistol as a cowardly braggart.

• Captain Jamy minor

  A Scottish captain in Henry's army, given to broad dialect, who joins Fluellen and Macmorris in their wrangle over the conduct of the siege at Harfleur.

• Captain Macmorris minor

  An Irish captain, hot-tempered and impatient to get on with the mining of Harfleur's walls, who bristles when Fluellen mentions 'your nation.'

• Michael Williams supporting

  A plain-spoken common soldier who, not knowing he addresses the King, argues on the night before Agincourt that the dead of an unjust war are charged to the king's own soul. He and the disguised Henry exchange gloves as a pledge to quarrel later.

• John Bates minor

  A weary English soldier on the eve of Agincourt who would rather be back in the Thames than facing the French, and doubts a subject can ever truly judge his king's cause.

• Alexander Court minor

  The third of the three soldiers the disguised King meets in the dark before Agincourt, who notes the day breaking that few of them will live to see end.

• Pistol supporting

  The blustering ancient, now married to the Hostess, who talks in tatters of stage-bombast, takes a French prisoner for ransom at Agincourt, and is beaten into eating a leek by Fluellen. Stripped of his friends and his wife, he resolves to slink home to England and turn cutpurse.

• Corporal Nym supporting

  A laconic corporal whose every other phrase is 'that's the humour of it,' once betrothed to the Hostess and so Pistol's rival. He goes to the French wars to thieve, and is hanged for it.

• Bardolph minor

  Falstaff's old red-nosed follower, now a soldier in France, who tries to make peace between Nym and Pistol and is hanged for robbing a church — a sentence the King upholds without mercy.

• Boy supporting

  Falstaff's former page, now servant to the three thieves Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, whose clear-eyed soliloquy sees through their cowardice and pilfering. He is among the boys guarding the luggage when the French slaughter them.

• Hostess (Mistress Quickly) minor

  Mistress Quickly, the Eastcheap hostess now married to Pistol, who gives the play's most famous prose set-piece: the tender, fumbling account of the death of Falstaff, 'a' babbled of green fields.'

• King Charles VI supporting

  Charles VI of France, a cautious, ailing king who, remembering Crécy and Poitiers, takes the English threat more seriously than his rash nobles. He yields at last, granting Henry his daughter and naming him heir to the French crown.

• The Dauphin supporting

  Lewis, the heir of France, arrogant and contemptuous of Henry's youth, who sends the new king a mocking gift of tennis balls and boasts through the night before Agincourt of his horse and his armour. The battle wipes the scorn from France's face.

• Constable of France supporting

  Charles d'Albret, Constable and commander of the French host, who scorns the starved English army on the eve of Agincourt and is killed in the rout he was so sure would be a massacre the other way.

• Duke of Orleans supporting

  A French duke who trades boasts and jests with the Constable and the Dauphin through the long night before the battle, confident to the last that numbers must tell.

• Duke of Bourbon minor

  A French lord who, when the unthinkable rout begins at Agincourt, cries out in shame and rushes back to die rather than live to see France so disgraced.

• Rambures minor

  A French lord in the Constable's company before Agincourt, joining the idle, overconfident banter of the French camp.

• Grandpre minor

  A French lord who paints a vivid, contemptuous picture of the ragged, beaten-looking English army drawn up at Agincourt — moments before that army destroys his own.

• Montjoy supporting

  The French herald who twice carries the enemy's demands to Henry — first offering ransom in place of certain defeat, then, after Agincourt, coming humbly to beg leave to count and bury the French dead.

• Governor of Harfleur minor

  The governor who yields the town of Harfleur to Henry once it is clear the promised French relief will not come.

• French Soldier (Le Fer) minor

  Monsieur Le Fer, a French soldier captured at Agincourt by Pistol, who pleads in French for his life through the Boy's interpreting and is spared for the promise of two hundred crowns' ransom.

• Herald minor

  An English herald who brings the King the written tally of the dead after Agincourt, naming the astonishingly lopsided count of French and English slain.

• Queen Isabel supporting

  Isabel, queen of France, who joins the final peace conference praying that the marriage of Henry and her daughter Katharine will knit England and France in lasting Christian love.

• Princess Katharine supporting

  The French king's daughter, who in a charming, bawdily mistranslated English lesson with her gentlewoman prepares to meet her conqueror, and is wooed in blunt soldier's terms by Henry to seal the peace between the kingdoms.

• Alice minor

  Katharine's lady-in-waiting, who has 'been in England' and so coaches the princess through her comic first English words, blushing at the ones that sound like French obscenities.

• Duke of Burgundy supporting

  The duke who brokers the final peace, pleading for it in a great lament for war-ravaged France — her vineyards untended, her children untaught — that all may once again 'put on her ordinary livery' of peace.

• Messenger minor

  A bearer of news in the French and English camps as the armies close on Agincourt.

• Lords ensemble

  French lords answering together in the closing court scene.

• All ensemble

  A group speaking in unison.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia